After I pulled the first two sheets of plywood out, I got to some plywood that wasn't rotted. It wasn't coming up very easily. It's also nailed to the sheet metal underneath. I'm thinking I'll have to grind off the nail heads to pull it up. Any other ideas for pulling up the plywood?

Hmm. I thought I'd written about this on my build thread... but now I can't find it, so perhaps it isn't there at all.

In any case.. another member here proposed setting the depth on a circular saw so it cuts the plywood as much as possible, while avoiding scoring the sheet metal underneath. Use that to cut the floor into smaller chunks, say 2x3 feet or so. Then pry up the pieces individually. I tried several methods before I finally broke down and gave this a shot -- I should have done it much sooner! Worked great.

For a pry bar I used a digging bar about 6 ft long. It's basically a hex-shaped rod with a point on one end and a flat chisel on the other end. Somewhat heavy, maybe 15 pounds. From 18-24 inches back I'd ram the flat chisel end along the steel floor and under the plywood, then use the bar to pry the wood up. The screws and nails either snapped off or pulled through, and after the wood was cleared away I could wind out what was left of the fasteners with vice-grips or cut/grind them off.

Hmm. I thought I'd written about this on my build thread... but now I can't find it, so perhaps it isn't there at all.

In any case.. another member here proposed setting the depth on a circular saw so it cuts the plywood as much as possible, while avoiding scoring the sheet metal underneath. Use that to cut the floor into smaller chunks, say 2x3 feet or so. Then pry up the pieces individually. I tried several methods before I finally broke down and gave this a shot -- I should have done it much sooner! Worked great.

For a pry bar I used a digging bar about 6 ft long. It's basically a hex-shaped rod with a point on one end and a flat chisel on the other end. Somewhat heavy, maybe 15 pounds. From 18-24 inches back I'd ram the flat chisel end along the steel floor and under the plywood, then use the bar to pry the wood up. The screws and nails either snapped off or pulled through, and after the wood was cleared away I could wind out what was left of the fasteners with vice-grips or cut/grind them off.

In any case.. another member here proposed setting the depth on a circular saw so it cuts the plywood as much as possible, while avoiding scoring the sheet metal underneath. Use that to cut the floor into smaller chunks, say 2x3 feet or so. Then pry up the pieces individually.

Maybe it was me? I went that route. It was much easier than struggling with 4'x8' chunks of plywood. I also used ratchet straps to help me out. The windows were out so I connected one end of the ratchet strap to a rib and pried the plywood up enough to get a hook on the plywood edge. With 2 ratchet straps connected I could pull the plywood up and, while keeping tension on it, pry the plywood up with a pry bar. Then tighten the ratchet straps further and continue. It was a bit finicky, but required very little physical exertion.
You might be able to do the same thing by opening the windows and wrapping around the ribs, but you risk breaking the glass when the ratchet strap slips from the plywood breaking in half.

There is a bit of a technique to it, I suppose. Sometimes the bar will tear through the wood. The nearer you can get it to the fastener, the better the chance of pulling the fastener through instead of the bar breaking through the edge of the wood.

I alternated with my pry bars, and used the 2x4 blocks as spacers to get my pry bars deeper under the plywood.

This worked great.

As I got farther along, I started lifting the entire sheet of plywood half inch or so with the pry bar before cutting with the skill saw.
This saved me from cutting the nails as they just pulled through the plywood and stayed in the metal bus floor.

Nat

__________________
"Don't argue with stupid people. They will just drag you down to their level, and beat you up with experience."

Patently waiting for the apocalypses to level the playing field in this physiological game of life commonly known as Civilization

This weekend I put new side marker lights and lenses on the bus. I bought a 70" post hole digger to pry up the rest of the floor. I pulled up the floor back to behind the rear wheel wells before I got exhausted. Betty the Blue Bird Bus also made a new friend (a bird). The bird was pretty confused and it took a while for it to figure out how to get out.

When I was picking up the new lens covers I ran in to some people who own an RV parts and service shop nearby. I asked them if they knew where I could find a 15,000 BTU roof mounted non-ducted dometic air conditioner. They opened the door to their van where they had one new in the box. I'm gonna go pick it up on Monday.

I'm gonna pick up the air conditioner on Monday. I might get the muffler fixed and/or get it inspected on Tuesday. Depending on if I fail the inspection, I may need to get the muffler fixed or get new tires or get it re-inspected on Thursday. If there's time left, I'll try to get it registered on Thursday as well.

I'm planning on using the bus to help some friends move next Friday/Saturday.

Two things:
Check out the scrapper used to remove tile from flooring. It is a long bar with a heavy flat scraper end. I use mine for removing the carpet tack strips, ceramic tiles, vinyl flooring, most stuck things.
If you are in a hurry and want a temp fix for the muffler, there is muffler tape. It looks like sticky fiberglass tape. Wrap the muffler completely and the hole will be covered. It will appear that you are wrapping it to keep heat in, water from rusting it out, and may just get you thru inspection. "It is there to help keep the heat away from a future water line". You didn't hear that from me. (nice disclaimer).